Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Leashing or Deal With It?

    • 25 posts
    July 26, 2016 8:23 AM PDT

    I'm all for realism, let say a fort with sentries, if someone was to attack the front gate, someone would likely sound a horn and all the fort would come to help. In the last twitch you guys did I found it very stupid that you guys could pick on guards one by one entering their fort.

     

    leashing or not, it's fairly simple, reproduce the reality. a smart creature will ask themself if it's worth chasing or not.

     

    Add some nice CC abilities and spells to improve on that regard like a mute spell to prevent a guard from yelling for help etc etc. 

     

     

    • 781 posts
    July 26, 2016 9:15 AM PDT

    Druid can root, shaman can root, cleric can calm, enchanter can mem wipe  that is 4 mobs that if band together can get stuck in a group pull and made to pull seperately.  It's not that hard to  single pull a group if you have players who know what they are doing and are on point. Making it pretty easy to break a camp and enter in to a fort.  Now once inside things might get a bit harder becuase of the LoS, change of strategy. Learning the dungeon / fort where mobs path, when do they path etc..etc...  Mage pets were bad about pulling whole dungeons because of their pathing, which made it to where if a pet class would group with you it was a must to not use your pet, which was kind of pointless to have one.. anyhow, a little off topic but yeah, there are a lot of utility spells to break leashing / non leashing

    • 184 posts
    July 26, 2016 11:08 AM PDT

    Kelem said:

    Druid can root, shaman can root, cleric can calm, enchanter can mem wipe  that is 4 mobs that if band together can get stuck in a group pull and made to pull seperately.  It's not that hard to  single pull a group if you have players who know what they are doing and are on point. Making it pretty easy to break a camp and enter in to a fort.  Now once inside things might get a bit harder becuase of the LoS, change of strategy. Learning the dungeon / fort where mobs path, when do they path etc..etc...  Mage pets were bad about pulling whole dungeons because of their pathing, which made it to where if a pet class would group with you it was a must to not use your pet, which was kind of pointless to have one.. anyhow, a little off topic but yeah, there are a lot of utility spells to break leashing / non leashing

     

    I posted something about that in this POST-NPC Fighting Styles, and though I agree that the traditional tactics of the past will mostly work if the Pantheon Dev’s stick to the old formulas of how NPC’s behave when being attacked. However, an idea I’ve been thinking about, say a group of players are hunting giants and on a pull they get two of them running back to camp, the Enchanter mez’s one of them while the group finishes off the first one, but then a roamer giant happens by and decides to join the fight but before engaging with the players he decides to wake up his giant buddy who happens to be drooling away due to a mez. Now the group has 3 irate giants to deal with and the Enchanter decides to Mez the two additions and the Druid in the group adds a root to each mezzed giant to ensure they stay put. However, another roamer happens by and instead of joining the fight he works on waking up his giant pals and then begins beating on the roots keeping them in place.

    What I’m getting at here is that monsters such as Giants or what not should be smart enough to assist their giant friends as needed. As an example in EQ if a group is fighting humanoid mobs and one of them is a healer the healer mob will always (or mostly) cast a heal on his buddy during their fight with the players. I just think it should go further than a heal and monsters should assist their race in other ways like waking them up if they are mezzed, or break a root, or calling in reinforcements…etc…

    Rint

    • 578 posts
    July 26, 2016 12:59 PM PDT

    Rint said:

    Kelem said:

    However, an idea I’ve been thinking about, say a group of players are hunting giants and on a pull they get two of them running back to camp, the Enchanter mez’s one of them while the group finishes off the first one, but then a roamer giant happens by and decides to join the fight but before engaging with the players he decides to wake up his giant buddy who happens to be drooling away due to a mez. Now the group has 3 irate giants to deal with and the Enchanter decides to Mez the two additions and the Druid in the group adds a root to each mezzed giant to ensure they stay put. However, another roamer happens by and instead of joining the fight he works on waking up his giant pals and then begins beating on the roots keeping them in place.

    What I’m getting at here is that monsters such as Giants or what not should be smart enough to assist their giant friends as needed. As an example in EQ if a group is fighting humanoid mobs and one of them is a healer the healer mob will always (or mostly) cast a heal on his buddy during their fight with the players. I just think it should go further than a heal and monsters should assist their race in other ways like waking them up if they are mezzed, or break a root, or calling in reinforcements…etc…

    Rint



    I like this idea a lot. The more complex the mobs can be, the more complex their AI and how they act and react, the better if you ask me. Mezzing a mob and then having to keep an eye out for other mobs trying to wake that mob up and/or breaking that mez would be awesome if you ask me. Not only would the mezzer have to be on their toes but the tank would have to keep on their toes too.

    Imo one of the most important things for Pantheon is the evolution of combat. Sticking with tab targetting is considered a bad move by some. They feel it is outdated and free targeting is what MMOs should be striving for. I don't believe that but I do believe that combat cannot feel like it did in the past. The mobs AI has to be more complex. Group strategy has to be more complex.

    • 112 posts
    July 26, 2016 2:18 PM PDT

    mobs that always chase you for eternity really dont make sense. as others have said, a 'guard' leaving his post to chase someone down doesnt make sense. a predatory animal will generally give up aftr a while.  outside of some mindless undead type creature, i dont see many instances where an enemy would chase you forever (unless they were a hunter or scout type mob that had this specific behavior, liek an orc scout, but the orc GUARD should chase you off for a bit then return to his post). quite frankly, just because 'thats how it was in -some other game- ' doesnt make it best, or even good for that matter. it also doesnt mean thats how it HAS to be in pantheon.


    This post was edited by werzul at July 26, 2016 2:20 PM PDT
    • 172 posts
    July 26, 2016 3:40 PM PDT

    One thing I really liked in EQ was that for a level 15 adventurer, a level 5 MOB was easy to deal with.  However, if you ran quickly past a camp, picked up a level 14 MOB, and just kept running, things could get interesting.  Now, if you had to run past lower level areas on your way to a guard or zone line, you could easily pick up a few of these lower level MOBs.  Simply snaring the level 14 and running did not work all that well.  3-4 level 5 MOBs would still be an isuue for a level 15 adventurer.  And then when the level 14 caught up...   it often meant you were done for.

    Don't take this the wrong way, I am not for MOBs that are leashed together.  But having a MOB chase you for some time can make escapes very difficult.  Especially if you are now running full speed directly away from that MOB into other MOBS, even lower level ones.  A level 5 MOB can still stun you.

    What I really liked about this was that it made it so that anyone who wanted to leave a dungeon or castle could not just run full speed for the exit.  That should never be a good or safe option IMO.

    • 109 posts
    July 26, 2016 6:10 PM PDT

    Definitely both.

    Wildlife should be to the death of one person or another..

    However, a soldier guarding a fort should know (maybe not ogres) he/she/it should not completely abandon its' post- perhaps the npc should go back to where it was told to stand guard (by the evil devs) where they then sound a horn to call in reinforcements making it not so desirable to run a mob so far away to sneak another group on in past it.. ? ish..

     

    there could be a limit on some of npc's of the distance/time/occurances from leaving its' post before it 'sounds a horn'.

     

    This could possibly add into adding new types of AA's as well. If you FD pull a mob, or pull the mob 2-3 times without killing it, and it summoned 4 guards-that'd be annoying. however if the monk could have abilities that make the npc think they are weak so they don't call for reinforcements as often, or they go a further distance without calling for reinforcements, etc, than that'd be a pretty good investment

    Mod Edit: Copy pasted double post into first post to keep in line with forum guidelines, please edit your post to add extras information rather than create a new post right underneath as it is against forum guidelines to double post. Double post has been removed. :)

     

    Yes, sorry Kilsin- I was telling myself that- after I edited the second post. Guess I was just thinking I was editing grammer- didn't occur to me I could've just added it into the first post!! If we could delete our own post, I would've done just that. In the past I have and had to edit the post to "delete me"


    This post was edited by Shayken at July 26, 2016 6:40 PM PDT
    • 7 posts
    July 26, 2016 6:28 PM PDT

    No leashing, hate it.  I really enjoy kiting, hard to kite leashing mobs...

    • 109 posts
    July 26, 2016 6:37 PM PDT

    Meldor said:

    I'm all for realism, let say a fort with sentries, if someone was to attack the front gate, someone would likely sound a horn and all the fort would come to help. In the last twitch you guys did I found it very stupid that you guys could pick on guards one by one entering their fort.

     

    leashing or not, it's fairly simple, reproduce the reality. a smart creature will ask themself if it's worth chasing or not.

     

    Add some nice CC abilities and spells to improve on that regard like a mute spell to prevent a guard from yelling for help etc etc. 

     

     

     

    I should've read first, I thought I was the first to come up with the idea! lol, but I like my idea of adding on like 3 strikes and you're out. if you fail to kill it after it leaves its post 2-3 times, you would have to deal with more mobs that don't go away for like 15 minutes. But those mobs would also have to be tougher I imagine, you don't want people intentionally making them sound a horn to exp grind or farm currency. 

    • 781 posts
    July 26, 2016 7:08 PM PDT

    anyone else remember how if you were pulling guards how when help would come and you had 7 guards running after you, first how if you were able to zone them they would actually loiter around the zone line for a few minutes.  It was as if they were waiting to see if you were going to zone back in, if you did, they instantly attacked you.  You would actually have to wait a few minutes before zoning back in and sometimes that didnt work either they would still be there waiting for you.  When they would finally return to their post only a few would go back in, 2 would return to their post and the remaining would start a new path, they would patrol outside for a bit before returning inside.  They would also buff the crap out of eachother which would make them harder to pull when you did get back to camp.  So non leashed mobs meant you really had to know what you were doing and where the closest exit was at all times. Loved it :) 

    • 116 posts
    July 27, 2016 10:14 AM PDT

    panopticon said:

    No leashing, hate it.  I really enjoy kiting, hard to kite leashing mobs...

    I don't know about other games implimentation, but in WoW a mob would not stop following you if you kept attacking it once in a while. A hunter once kited a world spawn dragon over several zones up to a capital city.

    Point is, leashing doesn't have to screw kiting and other similar techniques.

    • 200 posts
    July 27, 2016 1:48 PM PDT

    Lord Kazzak. :)

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1shA5CNtOg

     

    Greetings

    • 563 posts
    July 27, 2016 2:03 PM PDT

    Larirawiel said:

    Lord Kazzak. :)

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1shA5CNtOg

     

    Greetings

    I think this is a perfect example as to why a certain amount of leashing is a good thing. (Although at the same time stuff like this is fun as hell!)

    I think it should be dynamic. Some mobs should hunt you down for quite a long distance while others should give up fairly quickly and all the options in between depending on the mob type and possibly their reputation with you. An angered tiger may chase you more than an angered deer, and an agrod neutral/friendly mob will give up a lot earlier than an agrod hostile/hated mob, Bosses may give up the "chase" fairly early because they are sooo powerfull and they have "more important things to do" than chase some solitary player character that wandered too close to them. :P

    • 264 posts
    July 27, 2016 3:38 PM PDT

     If we have some intelligent MOB with a leash, should it be that in most cases that leash would be broken if you damage it more than ( ? ) % , as it becomes a life or death situation for the MOB. So if it becomes seriously life theatening for the MOB then the duty to retreat is eliminated no matter the distance from the MOB's Spawn Location? Or maybe the mechanic involved would triple the leash distance allowed. After you have damaged a non Military trained MOB say 90%, would it just start trying to run away?  Just kicking old ideas around.

    • 8 posts
    July 27, 2016 5:08 PM PDT

    After reading a lot of well-written replies and considering my MMO times (back to EQ1), I think mixed does sound the best.  Let's say rats don't agro for each other, but humanoids do.  Well, now you could make a variant such a large-brained rat that will agro for each other.  As we rise through the levels (at least initially), there can be the reuse of an archetype with still an exciting first encounter.  Is this leashed or not.  You could add it into the lore that scarybug1 is highly protective of their clans.  It looks like a win to me to mix.

    • 184 posts
    July 27, 2016 7:04 PM PDT

    Rachael said:

    I think this is a perfect example as to why a certain amount of leashing is a good thing. (Although at the same time stuff like this is fun as hell!)

    I think it should be dynamic. Some mobs should hunt you down for quite a long distance while others should give up fairly quickly and all the options in between depending on the mob type and possibly their reputation with you. An angered tiger may chase you more than an angered deer, and an agrod neutral/friendly mob will give up a lot earlier than an agrod hostile/hated mob, Bosses may give up the "chase" fairly early because they are sooo powerfull and they have "more important things to do" than chase some solitary player character that wandered too close to them. :P

     

    I was under the impression that WOW is a quasi-seamless world, so dragging a mob through different zones in WOW was fairly simple since all of the zones were seamlessly connected.  Pantheon, from what I understand is going to mirror EQ in the Zone-Based sense, thus preventing mobs from being able to walk through zones.

    Unless I missed a post from a Dev, I don’t think we will have much to worry about in terms of dragging an Epic-NPC from out of a dungeon and dragging it across zones to a final destination inside of a town. This is not to say that players won’t be able to pull Epic-Overland Mobs to a city or some hot-spot if such a NPC exists in the zone, it’s something to keep an eye out for :)

    With that said, I do think it would be very cool to attempt to pull something like this off, but I’m sure the dev-team is already ahead of this concern.

    Rint


    This post was edited by Rint at July 27, 2016 7:06 PM PDT
    • 2138 posts
    July 27, 2016 7:28 PM PDT

    I remember someone stating for ujndead, they they would haunt you, untill you killed them so I think  undead should follow you to zone and linger for quite some time ( thereby possibly attacking the next person that zoned in- just because the spirit's state of unsettledness was made more unsettled by my zoning and further annoyed because of the others zoning in)

    Animals I think should give up after a while- depending on the animal. Lions, can leap. (cover two, steps in one step or "bound") making them particularly nasty for any run-speed benefit one might have.

     and if possible- agroing in kind, by this I mean if you aggro a bug and run away form it and you run by other bugs;  the other bugs of all ages will join the chase.

     OR for bugs make it like a deep memory kind of thing where they wont aggro you until you have killed a certain amount (amount unknown to player) and once amount is reached any and all will swarm if you are near one's aggro radius and that ones aggro radius naturally overlaps the others.

    Epic NPC's should be smug in their lair or environs. Defending the lair but not bothering to go all the way to exit.

    • 200 posts
    July 28, 2016 12:38 AM PDT

    Rint said:

    Pantheon, from what I understand is going to mirror EQ in the Zone-Based sense, thus preventing mobs from being able to walk through zones.

    If so then i do not understand the discussion. :)

    If a mob cannot leave his zone then it will have almost the same effect like leashing: if you run away far enough then the mob will give up and run back.

     

    Greeting

    • 763 posts
    July 28, 2016 3:20 AM PDT

    @Larirawiel:

    The biggest difference is that EQ1 zones were generally fairly small. Pantheon zones are likely to be much bigger.

    So, while true that mobs will 'stop' at the zone boundary (tho i hope some are allowed to pass through them), you will have much much further to run.

    NB: It also makes sene then that 'zone boundaries' are created at 'game-contextual-boundaries' ... ie City Gates, Bridge-over-Chasm-with-guards, Entrance-to-mine etc and not just 'well, we ran out of pixel-space so we better just drop a boundary here' arbitrarily placed.

    • 184 posts
    July 28, 2016 7:45 AM PDT

    Larirawiel said:

    If so then i do not understand the discussion. :)

    If a mob cannot leave his zone then it will have almost the same effect like leashing: if you run away far enough then the mob will give up and run back.

    The concern is leashing a mob from within a few yards of its spawn/pathing area, this prevents the mobs from pursuing a player past X-amount of yards from his spawn/pathing area. The debate here is that many players don’t want to have leashing as represented in many other MMO’s.  As described above, if a player engages with a mob but realizes he bit off more than he can chew all he has to do is run away just a little past the leash of the pursuing mob to be safe. The mob will return to its starting point as if nothing happened, and on its return trip it will typically ignore any players it encounters on its way back to its spawning/pathing area until it resets.

    In EverQuest if a player engaged with a mob and then realized he was in over his head he had a couple choices:

    1) Run as fast as possible to the zone line and hope that you are faster than the pursuing mob.

    2) Run to another group of players and PRAY they help you, or run to them and PRAY the mob stops and engages them instead of pursuing you.

    3) If the player knows he can’t out run the mob and knows that his death is coming he will attempt to run to a safe spot to die so that he has an easier time to recover his corpse.

    Because the mobs were not leashed, they would pursue the players until one of the 3 items above happened. For many (including myself) this is the preferred way to be engaged with the mobs of Pantheon as it makes the players respect the world and in my opinion creates self-policing zones towards players that shouldn’t be in a zone due to being below a certain level.

    Rint


    This post was edited by Rint at July 28, 2016 7:48 AM PDT
    • 5 posts
    July 28, 2016 8:37 AM PDT

    Some of the best times I had in EQ were train busting, but some of the worst were repeatedly dying to constant trains in poorly designed zones.  (Karnor's Keep comes to mind).

     

    I hate the modern leash mechanic in most MMOs, but I also think trains are easily used to cheat to better content or to grief other players.  I'll have to agree with most here and say that some hybrid combo would be ideal.   Maybe if there are x monsters chasing a player already, others will figure "they got this" and not join in.  I like the idea of dumber creatures following longer and intelligent ones realizing they will not catch up to the player.  Many good ideas shared here already.

    • 1778 posts
    July 28, 2016 9:57 AM PDT
    Choo choo!
    • 172 posts
    July 28, 2016 2:46 PM PDT

    One way to decrease the prevalence of trains is to add more mobs that have some sort of crowd control themselves, maybe in conjunction with some sort of temporary speed buff.  i.e...  Root, stun, mezz, snare, summon, charge!, reckless speed, ect...

    I would love to see the player that starts up a good train just to find out that a number of the mobs can root, stun and can charge him/her.

    I still think leashes should be used, but only in certain situations, such as guards, named mobs, very intelligent mobs, ect...

    • 184 posts
    July 28, 2016 3:02 PM PDT

    I’ve actually had that happen to me in EQ plenty of times where if I had a train of mobs and a couple of them were casters I would either get DD, Poisoned, Charmed, and even rooted (Brownies got me all the time…) I disliked when mobs were able to cast on me over significant distance that we the players were never able to do; I would like there to be a range limit on the spells that caster class mobs utilize.

    Rint

    • 89 posts
    July 28, 2016 3:45 PM PDT

    Mobs should never leash based on a pre set distance and run past any players they would normally agro on the way back.  I would like to see mobs behave according to their intelligence level. An entire camp should never run after one player. They might send a small party to chase down the player and have the larger base stay and protect their leader. It would also be cool to see mobs spring traps on fleeing players as well.